This post will chronicle the process I went through in taking a fretted guitar and turning it into a fretless guitar. I am also hoping it might generate some nice discussion about fretless guitars. I tried to write this in a way that most people can understand, but you probably have to have some musical knowledge to fully appreciate it. For those who don't, the pictures explain it pretty well. Also, some of this stuff was dangerous and I am not providing full instruction on how to do this safely, only showing what I did. Anyone trying to emulate what I am doing does so at their own risk to their physical well-being and to their property, I am only putting this up to provide information. Whenever you start a project make sure you know how to use every tool and the risks of every substance in order to keep safe.

Why did I do this?

Well, in Western music we typically use only certain frequencies to make music. For example, the A above middle C has a frequency of 440 Hz, and if you double that you get the octave of that A, which has a frequency of 880 Hz. In between these two A notes we find other notes by dividing the space between the frequencies by 12 which gives us the 12 notes normally used in Western music in what is known as 12 tone equal temperament.

You can visualize this on the guitar by looking at how the frets literally divide the string to create different notes. I took the frets off of my guitar because I wanted to play the notes between other notes, but the frets made this difficult and forced me to try to bend to accomplish that. I was aiming for 24 tones (a type of microtonality), as if I had twice as many frets in the same amount of space. This got me thinking that I would be better off with the flexibility of having no frets so that is what I did. I am very happy with the sound I have achieved through this project and will hopefully provide some songs using my fretless guitar so people can hear some of the things it can do in the context of heavy metal.

First I purchased a cheap used guitar with a serviceable neck. I wanted a guitar with humbuckers because I figured that would work better for metal. For those who do not know what that is, look at how the pickups (black rectangles on the body) have two rows of magnets (the silver dots). Without having frets I was very concerned with how the intonation would be, meaning notes might not be in the right place. To check this I played each string at its 12th fret and played the 12th fret harmonic to make sure they were the same note. I also looked down the length of the neck to make sure the frets were parallel with one another to ensure that the neck was not twisted. Lastly, I made sure the action wasn't too high because I figured that a fretless guitar would be good for legato technique and smooth slides. All of this was, of course, part of what you should normally look into when purchasing a guitar.

Next, I assembled some of the necessary tools for removing the frets. Before that I used my string cutter to remove the original strings, which as I will explain later, I would not be using. A guitar in standard tuning is typically under around 85lbs 38kg of tension. This means that it was important that I detuned each string before cutting them, otherwise I would have risked them snapping into my eye.

I put the guitar on pizza boxes to keep everything off of the carpet. You can also see that I covered some of the guitar with painter's tape to prevent scratches. Regular tape would be too sticky and leave unwanted residue. From left to right in the above picture you see my string cutting multi-tool, my fret pullers, some gloves I ended up not using, and above the gloves a soldering iron. I found several sellers online for the defretting tool but picked one of the cheaper offers that I found on eBay.

I then used the soldering iron to heat the the fret closest to the bridge. I had read online from several sources that this would help expand the fret to ease removal and help loosen any glue. These frets were not glued in and I felt that heating the frets did not really add much when I tried removing one without doing so. I kept heating each fret anyways, but it is important to not overdo it and risk burning the wood. I did so for about 20 seconds each. I would then use the defret tool, starting along each side and working from there toward the center, walking the fret out of its slot. I then placed the frets on a damp towel so they would not scorch anything. As I did this there was some minor chipping of the fretboard and you can see in the above picture how rough it looked immediately after.

I then moved the project outside. At this point, I should have covered the entire guitar in tape to protect it as I was working with messy materials. Here you can see how I filled each of the gaps left by the fret with wood filler. I used a darker wood filler because I felt that a lighter color would clash with the orange from the sunburst pattern on the body. I also did not want the lines where the frets were to be invisible so that I could still use them as a visual reference of where notes used to be. This is why I did not use clear epoxy, which was also too viscous to work with easily. When applying the wood filler I put latex or some plastic type gloves on to keep the wood filler off of my fingers. I then pressed it into each gap.

To remove the excess I started sanding. I spent a lot of time sanding during this project. For those who have never sanded before, practice on some scrap wood first and remember that you go from low grit to high. Sand with the grain of the wood. If you start with too high a grit it will just take longer but if you start with too low it can leave scratches, so to reiterate, test first. I used a normal flat sanding block, but some people prefer radius blocks to give the neck a slight curve, these can be purchased from Stewmac.com.

After sanding approximately forever, I brought the guitar inside to marvel at the flatness and smoothness. I ran my fingers up and down the fretboard to feel that I had not missed any spots. First, I had to remove the tape which was covered in the very nice smelling sawdust. That sawdust is the primary reason aside from protecting from scratches that you want to cover every inch of the guitar. I almost got sawdust into the pickup area before I realized this.

Here you can see the extent of the chipping. Anywhere that the wood filler is not perfectly straight is a place were it is filling in wood that I took off when removing the frets. It may be hard to see, but I assure you that I did not do a perfect job. I re-taped the guitar to prepare the neck for finishing. I was very careful to have an edge of tape straight across the fretboard so that I would not get any finish along the side of the neck.

Due to humid and rainy weather, I had to wait before finishing the neck because it would not dry as quickly in those conditions. To pass the time I took a look at all of the frets I had removed. Above, you can see that I put the shortest fret right next to the longest. This is a good visual representation of something that is hard to see on the guitar, i.e. the neck is thinner by the nut and gets thicker by the bridge.

Before adding any finish I used some paint thinner to clean the wood and fully remove all of the sawdust. I purchased some kind of environmentally safe stuff that was "less" poisonous and also of a comparable price. Still, this entire part of the process was done in a well ventilated area - outside on a porch with a fan. I made sure it was not too windy of a day out so nothing would blow onto the guitar, but to be extra safe I also constructed a wall out of used pizza boxes around the guitar to cut down on wind. This is why I was eating so much pizza at the time. I normally eat healthy but I just had to eat delicious pizza for the sake of the guitar project. Apparently there are other ways to get cardboard though.

For the finish I used Minwax® Fast-Drying Polyurethane. Along with the paint thinner, I first tested the look of this on a piece of scrap wood. I used the clear semi-gloss and applied it with a bristle brush which I handled to make sure there were no loose hairs that would get stuck onto the neck. I used semi-gloss because I wanted some shine to the neck but not so much as to be distracting. Stain is not really necessary when you are finishing a wood with such natural dark beauty to it, as a fretboard should have, so I just relied on the polyurethane to protect the wood from the strings without adding any color. After the first coat the finish was a little bit uneven in some places where the wood was naturally more absorbent.

After adding a second application, the finish was beautiful. The above picture shows how reflective the neck was, you can see the railing on the deck and even the house next door. I was sure to allow the first coat to dry before adding the second. I also had to use some tweezers to remove a mayfly that decided to land on the neck and also some tiny piece of leaf. The mayfly even survived!

Here is a close up of the neck. The green and blue at the top of the picture is just reflected light from the sky and a nearby tree. Here you can see that the finish is pretty smooth and also how the wood filler is pretty damn straight but not 100% perfect because of small chips. The next step was to sand the finish with a very high grit sandpaper to smooth out the final product. After that point the neck was like touching a piece of wet ice it was so smooth.

Here it is after the sanding. The last step was to add strings and play!

What strings did you use?

What an astute question! Without frets, the string will vibrate directly against your fingers and the fretboard itself. This absorbs energy faster than when it vibrates against metal frets, which means you loose sustain (notes won't ring out as long). To protect the wood from the strings, I put on a set of flatwound strings. Flatwounds have some of the strings wrapped in a ribbon of metal where typical strings (roundwound) have some of the strings wrapped in round wire. For this reason, flatwounds are smoother and will cause less wear on the fretboard. They also have a jazzier tone, which is not terribly noticeable when playing with the distortion needed for extreme metal, although the slides are certainly smoother.

To help remedy the sustain problem inherent in the fretless I also used a heavier gauge string, 11s. (D'Addario ECG24 Chromes Flat Wound, Jazz Light, 11-50 to be specific.) Heavier gauge strings have more mass which helps them vibrate longer. To compensate for the greater mass of the strings I also downtuned the guitar to C, which is fine for extreme metal.

How does it sound?

Pretty damn awesome, hopefully I will get some recordings up in the end of July. I really enjoy the end result, the sustain problem is not really that noticeable, and the fretless guitar is incredibly versatile. Slides are beautiful and playing the right note is much easier than I thought it would be. I love being able to play the notes between the usual notes with ease. The downsides are pretty minimal:

First, since I never lowered the nut, when I play notes close to the nut the strings bend at a drastic angle to the nut. Ergo, I never play notes before the first fret because I worry about damaging the string. Second, playing chords is really damn hard so far. This is because I can no longer rely on the frets, if I play a power chords in C standard tuning, two of my fingers would have to be perfectly vertical. I normally play power chords with three fingers, but with the fretless I have to barre the 5th and the octave using my ring finger. So, have to change how I play most chords but intervals are still easy enough. Another thing that makes chords difficult is how the tips of my fingers create more sustain than the rest of the finger does. So if I was barring a suspended fourth, the higher root and 4th will sound louder than the lower pair. Still, I love it.

Back before I played guitar (not too long ago actually), fretless string instruments used to baffle me; I couldn't believe that people could accurate hit notes. However, after playing guitar for a little while, I realize now that it's very easy to memorize frets with muscle memory. Still though, there's no way I could accurate play a fretless, not for a long long time at least.

Still though, there's no way I could accurate play a fretless, not for a long long time at least.

I think you would be surprised how easy it is to pick up. I really do not play guitar as much as a lot of the people on here and it wasn't really much of a transition as far as playing single notes goes, so I imagine a lot of people here could just pick one up and start playing. It would probably be more of a challenge if I didn't keep some visual indicator of where the frets were.

I defretted my first 4 string fretless bass like 8 years ago and never came back to fretted basses. I purchased 2 more basses (a 4 str and a 6 str), both were defretted as well. There's virtually nothing that you can't do in a fretless. I'm planning to get another fretless bass in the near future (6 or 7 strings).

Nice project man! I don't own a fretless guitar myself, but I have used one many times and I have to say that it feels normal to me! If I'm really into the music that I'm playing I don't even notice the absence of frets. Good job!

Why the surprise? I know many musicians keep their first instruments untouched, but here instruments are expensive and I couldn't afford to buy another bass.

My main motivations to switch to fretless were Steve Di Giorgio, Gary Willis, Steve Bailey and Sean Malone. I already knew many Death and some Control Denied songs, a couple of Cynic ones and I always wanted to try a fretless. I had like 5 years of experience playing bass (and 9 of classic guitar), so I thought I could adapt more or less fast to fretless. I read a lot of articles and asked some advices from another musicians to do it; when I finally finished I was happy as hell - but not my bandmates.

I practiced like 5-6 hours per day to get a good intonation, doing scales and intervals (octaves, fiths, fourths and so on mostly to develop my ear and muscle memory). Near 3 weeks after that I could play fairly well and after another month I played live with it and had a very good performance.

Why the surprise? I know many musicians keep their first instruments untouched, but here instruments are expensive and I couldn't afford to buy another bass.

Kveldulfr we get what you mean, but read your post again 'defretted my first 4 string fretless bass'. Obviously you cannot remove any frets from a fretless bass. I get what you mean, but you either made a typo or put it into words incorrectly, thus your post came out as a bit confusing. triggerhappy just made a joke out of it, expressing his astonishment about the fact that you supposedly defretted a fretless bass but I'm pretty sure that he understood the meaning of your post (i.e. that you turned your bass into a fretless bass by removing the frets yourself).

Why the surprise? I know many musicians keep their first instruments untouched, but here instruments are expensive and I couldn't afford to buy another bass.

triggerhappy just made a joke out of it, expressing his astonishment about the fact that you supposedly defretted a fretless bass but I'm pretty sure that he understood the meaning of your post (i.e. that you turned your bass into a fretless bass by removing the frets yourself).

Really cool project and great documentation of it. A few questions about how it holds up (may be more applicable over time):

-When you change strings, do you do anything to prevent the neck from bowing back for the short time while there are no strings on it? I'm curious as to how the wood filler reacts to this, and how the finish affects that.

-How do the strings feel against the finished fretboard?

-Do you need to clean/maintain the neck with anything beyond wiping it off with guitar polish? Oiling it isn't really an option, but maybe it'll need some polishing? Does it wear at all?

Why didn't you bandmates happy with you using a fretless? Also do you have any candidates in mind for your future 6 or 7 string fretless bass? I would imagine that they are unusual enough for you to have narrowed down your plans to a few choices, but maybe there are more options than one would think.

@Zodijackyl - I still haven't really played it in very much so you are right in that these issues may be more applicable over time. When changing the strings initially I didn't do anything to keep the neck from bowing back but I always de-tune guitars gradually before removing strings so that the tension on the instrument changes in a slower and even fashion than if I did something like remove the top three strings and let it sit. I have heard mixed comments on how effective this is but the only other options I have seen when doing work on the neck involve an elaborate series of vises or the Erlewine neck jig. From what I have read, most wood fillers should be able to handle expanding and shrinking a bit without cracking, more than epoxy would. I have also read that the finish on the neck influences this because it has to let the wood "breathe" a bit, while still keeping out dirt and moisture. I think what this really means is that if I did an excessively thick finish (particularly with shellac or French polish) then it would become so rigid that it may crack.

The strings feel like butter against the fretboard. When playing I normally will only feel the strings except for b and high e where my dumb fingers also touch the fretboard (I suppose its a fingerboard now). For me, this still feels smoother than with a fretted guitar where my fingers will feel the frets as I pass by them in a slide.

For cleaning, I will probably stick with simple guitar polish. I haven't really gotten it dirty at all yet, I think in part because the flatwound strings do not pick up dirt as well as roundwounds and because without frets there isn't really anywhere for grime to easily accumulate. I am not much of a sweater though and have the habit of not wanting to play guitar if my fingers aren't clean and dry. The wear on the finish should be very minimal because the flatwound strings and because the finish claimed to be "super durable." Still, I have never seen a fretless guitar in person other than the one I made so its just speculation at this point. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few years I was putting on a new coat of polyurethane, but I hope it is more durable than that.

Why didn't you bandmates happy with you using a fretless? Also do you have any candidates in mind for your future 6 or 7 string fretless bass? I would imagine that they are unusual enough for you to have narrowed down your plans to a few choices, but maybe there are more options than one would think.

They thought at the moment that I couldn't learn to play properly with it in time since we had a gig booked within the next 2 months or so and, in the singer words, fretless were shit cause it sounds less bass-y and less aggressive than fretted ones. I said: I'm sticking to fretless for the time being - since I didn't have another one anyway -, so if you don't like it, get a bass for me to play live or just bear with it, cause I'll playing just fine and nothing wrong will happen (in fact, I was the most solid performer of the 4).

We played the gig and I played well, to the point that many metalheads were surprised for me playing a fretless live (cause I know some fretless bassists that use it just for studio and live they use just fretted for various reasons, being the main the fact they could just fuck up easily). With little time, I was invited to play in a Death cover band, which I accepted since I love Death and the songs were challenging, especially in a live environment. They were more than happy for having a fretless bassist to play the songs off Human and ITP and then I got the 6 string and never left it.

About what bass I wanna buy? I'm on the fence, thinking about the following options:

-Warwick Thumb NT6 or the 7 string version-Ibanez GWB1005 - Gary Willis Signature - this one has 2 problems: the price and having just 5 strings.-A custom made by a Luthier according my own specs.

Luckily things have gone as expected with both the maintenance and playability. The strings and fretboard have remained remarkably clean, likely because of how the flatwound strings really have no good places for dirt to accumulate like typical strings do. In all of this time I haven't even changed them, but supposedly they are supposed to last longer and I don't play it as often as my other guitars. Similar to the strings, the fretboard's semi-gloss finish hasn't accumulated any dirt because of how buttery smooth it is. I managed to get the thickness of the finish just right because the strings haven't noticeably worn it down anywhere and it also hasn't cracked. The finish on the fretboard doesn't seem to have dried and I haven't applied any lemon oil or anything to it.

In hindsight I wish I had lowered/filed down the nut to keep the strings the same distance from the fretboard as they were from the frets because that little bit of difference in pushing the string down can mess with the pitch slightly. This makes the filled in lines from where the frets used to be a slightly less useful visual aid but otherwise isn't an issue. Surprisingly I haven't had to adjust the truss rod due to the heavier gauge but I assume that is because I have kept it in C.

I am still really happy with it and once I get a decent amp again I will start recording.

In hindsight I wish I had lowered/filed down the nut to keep the strings the same distance from the fretboard as they were from the frets because that little bit of difference in pushing the string down can mess with the pitch slightly. This makes the filled in lines from where the frets used to be a slightly less useful visual aid but otherwise isn't an issue. Surprisingly I haven't had to adjust the truss rod due to the heavier gauge but I assume that is because I have kept it in C.

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Man, you NEED to do it. You see, the nut's height is fabricated taking into account the frets, so you need to remove it from the fretboard and use a file to sand it down (more or less 1-2mm depending how you like it). This will lower the action of the bass considerably, making it way more comfortable and avoiding some unwanted noises made by pushing the strings to the naked wood (if you like to use tapping, you definitely need to lower the action).

Also, if the nut is made of plastic, try to get one made of bone, for better sound of the open string notes and maintenance.